This month has been really lovely so far. I am pretty busy with my classes, and have a lot of school work and communication to keep up with. Now that midterms are over, I am happy to have some time to relax and get a head start on studying for the second round of midterms.

Yesterday, I baked chocolate chip banana squares. Since there were five ripe bananas calling my name, I settled on this recipe, which featured five bananas. I adjusted the amounts of flour and added some oats. They turned out AMAZING – I ate two this morning for breakfast after scrambled eggs and veggies. These banana chocolate chip squares are really tender, and satisfy my sweet tooth without being too sweet. I hope you give the recipe a shot!

Place bananas, honey, butter, eggs, and vanilla in a blender. Blend completely and pour into large bowl.

Mix in dry ingredients and chocolate chips.

Bake 30 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.

Cool completely. Cut into 16 squares.

When I found myself with an extra baked sweet potato, I took off the skin and pureed it, then used it in this great recipe for sweet potato baked oats. They turned out fantastic, and had so much flavour. I’m having fun modifying this base recipe (1.3 cups oats, 1 cup liquid) to try different things. I recently tried this with pumpkin puree instead of sweet potato puree, and steeped the almond milk in chai tea leaves for a great pumpkin-chai fall baked oatmeal.

Healthy Sweet Potato Baked Oatmeal

4 servings

1 and 1/3 cups quick oats

1 heaping tsp cinnamon

scant 1/4 tsp salt

2/3 cup sweet potato puree (1 medium sweet potato)

1 tbsp chia seeds

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 tbsp melted butter (optional)

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix all and bake in 8×8 pan for 25 mins at 350 degrees.

One final baking adventure – I had lots of leftover carrots from making Thai green curry, and thought it would be really nice to bake them up into squares. These turned out great – just sweet enough, and loaded with fall flavour. They froze very well.

Apple-Carrot Squares

Ingredients:

1/3 cup almond meal

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1 cup quick oats

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 heaping teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1/3 cup honey

3 single-serve containers of unsweetened applesauce

3 shredded carrots

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk all wet ingredients.

Whisk all dry ingredients in a separate bowl.

Whisk wet mixture into dry mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the top. Bake the loaf for 45 to 50 minutes. Place the pan on a cooling rack, then let the bread cool in the pan. Gently turn the loaf out onto the rack to cool completely.

Store leftover pumpkin bread in an airtight container lined with paper towels for up to 4 days at room temperature or 7 days in the refrigerator. It can be frozen, wrapped tightly and placed in a ziptop bag, for up to 3 months.

Things from recently:

trying to get tickets to Corteo, which is coming to Toronto soon

shopping lists

choreography ideas

recipe for chocolate quinoa breakfast bowl, which I have yet to make

new Netflix show on figure skating

study schedules

ways to learn

Seline and I had lunch at Taco Farm one day, and I had a lovely plate of enchiladas with Mexican rice, arugula salad with pineapples, and sour cream. Seline enjoyed her brunch poutine – a lovely dish of chorizo, veggies, and a fried egg.

Afterwards, we spent some quiet study time at Seven Shores Cafe, where I had a great pumpkin spice chai latte and a vegan chocolate chip cranberry muffin. Seven Shores has the best creative baked goods, and I cannot wait to have their sunflower butter cookie. One day…

Another day, another brunch – here, Seline and I savoured meals at Sole. I had the vegetable crepe, which was loaded with spinach, kale, mushrooms, and goat cheese, then topped with a vodka spaghetti sauce and zucchini/squash ribbons. The best part? Fresh pastries – banana bread and pumpkin seed muffins – before the meal. I love pastries as you can see.

Random things from here and there:

spaghetti squash with Thai green curried vegetables

Mom’s homemade cranberry chocolate cookies

drew some anatomical structures on Seline!

Seline and I LOVE Red House, a restaurant in Uptown Waterloo. Here, I had a beautiful turkey sandwich on potato chive bread (butternut squash aioli was to die for) and a bowl of caramelized onion and golden beet soup. For dessert, I enjoyed the deconstructed lemon meringue pie, which had white chocolate mousse, berry compute, sugar cookie – which I believe should’ve been puff pastry – and lemon curd. Seline had the truffled lamb spaghetti.

Snapshots from aerial silks recently.

Attending a fun conference at the University of Waterloo!

And bits and pieces of volunteering, the fall term with cooler weather, and school stuff. Plus EYE MAKEUP (?!) that my sister experimented on me, for my aerial silks showcase performance.

Things from my Notes on my computer.

And a couple tasty meals.

That’s all I have for ya – wish I could share something more exciting, but every day has just been school, home, school, home, etc. Have a lovely rest of the week!